Show, Don’t Tell

Lecture 5

Y ou may already be familiar with the adage to “show, not tell” in

your writing, but what does that mean? The three key elements of
showing are using the active voice (that is, avoiding to be and – ing
verb constructions); making precise, vivid word choices; and mastering the
art of the metaphor.

Writing with Style—Active Verbs

x In your exercise for last time, you wrote three beginning sentences—
sentences you tested to see if they created character, con Àict, and
narrative. Here is my example, which I kept light-hearted:

Big Stan positioned the wailing infant under his right arm

like a football and silently considered that perhaps everything at

x We have a character, Big Stan, who carries babies in unusual

the corner
ways, Burger
and he KingÀict—witness
has con that morningthe
hadcrying
not gone
babyprecisely as
and the plans
gone awry. We also have narrative arc because whatever has gone
wrong has already happened, and now Stan must deal with the
planned. job correctly.
consequences. conÀ ict,made
If this sentence and narrative arc. You
you curious, then also
I didneed
my

to do isit more
with tostyle. thea mantra of creative
thanwriting teachers
x There writing great beginning establishing character,

everywhere.
x Have you ever asked yourself why some writing is vivid and other
writing leaves you cold? For all that we discuss story telling, vivid
writing is writing that shows, rather than tells. “Show, don’t tell,” is
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 x The question is, how do we show when we write? Let’s return to that
sentence about Big Stan and look at two possible revisions. The ¿ rst
revision is telling and the second revision is showing.

Revision 1: The little crying baby was under the arm of Big
Stan, who carried it with him like a football that morning
when he opened the door of the Burger King and walked out
into sunlight, thinking about how everything hadn’t gone
precisely as planned.

Revision 2: The door burst open as his shoulder struck it and,

after a moment of shocked silence, the wail of the infant
shattered the morning silence; as Big Stan positioned the
squirming, shrieking bundle under his right arm like a wet
football, he silently considered that perhaps everything there
in the Burger King had not gone precisely as he had planned.

x If you look closely at these two sentences, the most important difference
you will notice is the way the verbs are handled. Showing sentences
use the active voice, and telling sentences use the passive voice,
relying on what we might call “state of being” verbs.

x Let’s compare three versions of one short sentence to see how this
works. First, “The restaurant was being inundated by the sounds of
street music.” This is a passive construction because something is
happening to the restaurant. And it takes three words—was being
inundated—to express a single action.

x The second version—“The sounds of street music were inundating the

restaurant”—is no longer passive because the music is doing
something, but this sentence still has an -ing verb, which is often a
warning sign of telling.

x The easiest way to change this sentence into a showing sentence would
be to write “The sound of street music inundated the restaurant.”
Notice the verb is down to a single word.

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Precision and Concision
x Of course, there is more to showing than verbs. Let’s take another
sentence and take the process even further. Here is the original: “By
the end of the disastrous middle-school performance, the young
ballerinas were all limping across the stage, with sweaty hair
covering their once eager faces.”
x We know ¿ rst to get rid of those passive verb constructions, so our
¿ rst attempt might read like this: “By the end of the disastrous
middle-school performance, the young ballerinas went awkwardly
across the stage, their once-eager faces covered with sweaty hair.”
Better, but still a little À at.

x Part of showing involves vivid imagery for your reader, and that
means using detail. We do this through careful word choice. Went
and covered, among others in that sentence, are both pretty generic
words.

x
Another clue that you have chosen a weak or a generic verb is the
impulse to modify with an adverb. The reason went needs to be
described with awkwardly is because went is not vivid at all.
Adverbs are often used to cover up a weak verb choice.

x Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style offers two guidelines to

writing great prose: precision and concision. That means choosing
the most precise words and using the fewest number of words
possible.

x So how did our ballerinas cross the stage? Perhaps they limped,
crawled, shufÀ ed, or crept. Where else in the sentence can you get
rid of vague terms?

x Here is my revision: “By the time the curtain fell over the sorry
spectacle of the eighth-grade ballet recital, once-eager faces were
plastered with sweaty hair and fourteen pairs of pink slippers limped
across the stage.”

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 o Instead of just end, we have the curtain fell—something you can
see. I could even say whether it is a red velvet curtain or a
crooked homemade curtain if I wanted to take this further.

o Instead of the young ballerinas went awkwardly, now fourteen

pairs of pink slippers limped. You can visualize their struggle,
and you even know how many of them there were.

x Taking this one step further, let’s examine some sentences from the
New York Times best-selling account of Thomas Jefferson’s passion
for French wines, Benjamin Wallace’s The Billionaire’s Vinegar:

Now, as his horse-drawn carriage clattered along the post

roads of France, he at last had a chance to see the most fabled
vineyards in the world. … He passed through rich farmland
planted with corn, rye, and beans. As soon as he ferried west
across the Garonne … the picture changed. … As he rolled
through the district of Sauternes and entered Bordeaux, he
looked out through the glass windows of his carriage and saw
nothing but grapevines.

x Because this is a work of non¿ ction, all of the details in this description
are true, but notice how Wallace presents the details. He does not say,
“Jefferson traveled by carriage through the French wine country.”
His word choice is speci¿ c.

x Notice, too, that these details are not only visual. The carriage clattered
along the road, letting us hear what Jefferson experienced. Although
we call it showing, we are not limited to visual details.

x Jefferson also ferried across the Garonne. Wallace uses a verb that also
encompasses a noun, getting extra ef¿ ciency out of his word choice.

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Metaphors and Similes
x Wallace also makes particularly effective use of metaphors. Take
two examples from this book: “The wail of the infant shattered the
morning silence” and “Ocean-bound schooners heaped with barrels
plied the broad waterway.”
x Cries do not literally shatter things, of course, but Wallace’s word
choice implies a similarity between the auditory phenomenon to a
physical one. In a sense, he puts two images in our heads at once.
Similarly, he has schooners ply the river because the word evokes to
us the twisting and twining of the strands of a rope.

x In addition to metaphors—these implied comparisons—writers can

also use more direct comparisons called similes; these are
comparisons that use “like” or “as.”

x There is a role for both similes

and metaphors in good writing.
The difference is that a simile
separates the two images (A is
like B), while a metaphor
yokes them (A is B). In that
sense, metaphors show and
similes tell.
x Mixed metaphors are
comparisons that do not make
sense. Sometimes these are
used on purpose for comic
effect, as in Tom Wolfe’s
Bonfi re of the Vanities: “All at
once he was alone in this noisy
hive with no place to roost.”
But unless you are trying to be
funny, steer clear of them.

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 Skilled writers like Tom Wolfe indulge
in mixed metaphors for humorous
effect.
x You may also run into just plain bad metaphors, when a comparison seems
forced. A writer should never use a metaphor just for the sake of using
a metaphor; their purpose is give the reader a deeper or more vivid
experience.

Show, Don’t Tell—A Writing Exercise x Take a piece of writing you are
already working on. See if you can ¿ nd any telling errors and revise it to
show more effectively. Alternatively, write a page or two of description—
about anything you want—where you practice actively showing rather than
telling.

Important Terms

metaphor: An implied comparison that allows readers to see things in a new

light.

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simile: An explicit comparison using the words “like” or “as” that allows readers
to see things in a new light.

Suggested Reading

Strunk, White, and Angell, The Elements of Style.

Wallace, The Billionaire’s Vinegar.
Wolfe, The Bonfi re of the Vanities.

Questions to Consider

1. Do you think that our emphasis on showing rather than telling is part of the
time-honored tradition of writing, going back centuries and across cultures,
or do you think it has been inÀ uenced by the rise of mass media in the 20 th
and 21st centuries? What books would you use to make the case for your
position?

2. When might an author deliberately choose to tell rather than show? What are
the effects of telling, and are there moments where a writer might want to
use deliberately “weaker” narrative techniques?

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